Aim/PurposeMentoring is an important way to promote graduate STEM student success, yet scant research has focused on both mentor and mentee experiences, or international graduate students. The focus of this study was to address this gap by gaining an understanding of the mentoring experiences of former international and domestic graduate STEM students in the U.S. and how their graduate advisors perceived mentoring these students.

BackgroundThere is a growing demand for highly skilled Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) professionals in the United States (U.S.), with many recruited from STEM graduate programs. Mentoring is essential to strengthen graduate STEM education and enhance students’ graduation rates. This study builds on Yob and Crawford’s conceptual framework of mentoring and situates its findings within Chandler et al.’s ecological systems theory. In so doing, graduate mentoring is elevated as a crucial element within the broader ecology of graduate education.

MethodologyThis qualitative study conducted interviews with eight STEM mentors and twenty of their recently graduated domestic and international doctoral mentees from four large public, research-intensive universities in the southeastern U.S. Analyses drew upon academic and psychosocial behaviors from Yob and Crawford’s conceptual framework of mentoring to describe mentoring behaviors and how they supported or did not support students’ development.

ContributionThis study provides unique insights into graduate STEM mentoring from the perspectives of domestic and international mentees and their domestic and international mentors. This research adds the perspectives of international graduate students and both the mentors and the mentees to Yob and Crawford’s conceptual framework of mentoring. Most importantly, the study ties the findings to theory by situating graduate mentoring behaviors within the broader ecological system of graduate education.

FindingsOverall, mentees’ and mentors’ descriptions of mentoring behaviors revealed similar patterns: a greater focus on academic behaviors than on psychosocial behaviors. However, the findings indicate that mentees’ perspectives often differed from those of their mentors, particularly regarding power dynamics. The knowledge, skills, and career objectives located in the macrosystem of the graduate STEM ecological system were the most prevalent aspects described by participants. Situating the findings within the ecological systems framework highlighted the central role of the macrosystem (outer) level compared to the ontological system (inner) and microsystem (relational).

Recommendations for PractitionersMentees are encouraged to ask mentors for the support they need, tap into networks and career pathways, prioritize publishing, ask for regular meeting times, and establish a dissertation topic early in the program. Mentors ought to provide more structured guidance early in the program, prioritize timely written feedback, balance mentee workloads, initiate discussions about job prospects, and include mentees in social invitations. Graduate programs should ideally limit the number of mentees per professor, offer formal mentor training, and integrate job-search resources into their doctoral programs.

Recommendation for ResearchersBuilding on the findings of this study, applying ecological systems theory may help bring a range of studies into a common theoretical framework and advance graduate mentoring and the field of graduate education.

Impact on SocietyThe findings of this study imply that the quality of mentoring depends not only on the mentor and mentee’s characteristics and their relationship but also on overarching cultural, institutional, and social contexts. Although the context of these graduate mentors and mentees spanned a range of STEM fields, it seems likely that many of the findings may translate to graduate education more broadly. By applying the recommendations, universities could strengthen graduate mentoring and enhance graduation rates.

Future ResearchIt could be enlightening to conduct a more focused study of a smaller number of students and to understand the other relationships (e.g., peers, community members) in the mentoring ecological system that support students’ development. Taking a different approach, a survey could be developed to understand all the influences on graduate students’ mentoring experiences.